Activating gender: How identity affects students’ perceptions of music activities

Abstract

In adolescence, many students align their music participation choices with the expectations for their gender group. While cultural norms may explain gender disparities in music activities, there is no empirical evidence of how gender salience may influence students’ perceptions of music activities. The purpose of this study was to experimentally test the influence of gender salience on adolescents’ perceptions of music activities. Using a quasi-experimental design, middle school participants ( N = 246) were assigned to either a primed condition where students were asked to consider their gender identity or a control condition; all participants took a survey on interest in music activities. Participants in the experimental condition rated music activities, including stereotypical masculine and feminine activities, significantly more positively than the control group. Music students rated music activities significantly higher than their non-music peers. Gender was only identified as having a significant relationship with feminine music activities, as ratings of stereotypical masculine activities were statistically similar between boys and girls. This experiment provides evidence that gender salience can impact students’ perceptions of music activities. With a more complete understanding of how gender operates within the environment, music educators can understand how gendered messages within the environment may impact perceptions of music activities.

Children’s identity work in daily singing-based music classes: A case study of an Australian boys’ school

“…Boys' musical identities in the past have been identified as "at risk" (Lamont, 2002, p. 56), and significant research has been devoted to the "missing males" (Koza, 1993) in music and singing (Freer, 2007(Freer, , 2010Harrison, 2005Harrison, , 2007Harrison, , 2008Harrison, , 2009Harrison, , 2010Harrison et al, 2012;Watson et al, 2017). Research has also reported on the differences in music participation more broadly between genders during adolescence (Kelley, 2021;McPherson et al, 2015). Other studies have found that boys begin school with the same musical and singing competency as girls (e.g., Barrett, 2012;Freer, 2015;Harrison & Young, 2017;Tafuri, 2008;Welch et al, 1996).…”

Music performance anxiety and self-compassion in college-level music majors

“…In conclusion, there are limited studies examining musicians and self-compassion (Kelley & Farley, 2019;Sigurðardóttir, 2020); more research is needed to build on these findings to determine how self-compassion operates in relation to MPA. Further research is also warranted with varying ages and performance levels.…”

“…Kelley and Farley (2019) examined this topic to determine whether college-level music majors had levels of self-compassion that differed from other majors; they found no difference between music and non-music majors. While Kelley and Farley (2019) revealed a relationship between the self-compassion and MPA in music majors, this was found only after a blunt follow-up question that broadly asked participants if they experience MPA in a dichotomous prompt. Another study found a relationship between MPA and the self-compassion construct of over-identification (Sigurðardóttir, 2020).…”